As an aspiring writer who recently spent time in Paris, I've become enamored with all books related to the City of Light. Allow yourself to fantasize with this classic memoir of Hemingway's days as a young expatriate writer living on Rue du Cardinal Lemoine in the 1920s. "If you're lucky enough to have lived in Paris…" he writes. You'll wish you could go back in time and join him.

It’s the true story of a lifestyle editor in Boston who realizes she wants to explore her passion for food, so she gets a job working as an oyster farmer for a year. The book gives you amazing insights into the hard work that goes into sustainable ocean farming. It also makes you reconsider what you do every day and wonder if you'd ever take a bold step like Murray's to pursue something you love.

In the long, inactive autumn of his life, legendary filmmaker Orson Welles allowed his friend, director Henry Jaglom, to tape their conversations over lunch at Los Angeles's Ma Maison. His talk is full of Hollywood history and gossip (Welles was no fan of Woody Allen, whose "particular combination of arrogance and timidity sets my teeth on edge.") But it's also sadly deflating: Welles was constantly brokering – and, perversely, unbrokering – deals for new projects that would all, in the end, amount to nothing more than talk. Fascinating stuff.

Check back every Thursday for another round of staff picks, and see more book reviews each week in PEOPLE magazine, on newsstands now. Plus, check out last week's coming-of-age novels
and more great book finds here.